Custom race merchants display 'I HAVE NO GREETING' message

[Luminiari]

To be fair, I've not gotten around to doing that as I've been working on the shop mod... and because I never knew how to do that.

[ziitch]

Well, go into Dialogue, choose your NPC, and go into Topics->GREETING, and copy what you think is necessary. Now go to the Conditions tab and add a new one, with it using GetInFaction and checking if the target is in PlayerFaction. That might bypass the playable problem that comes up...

[Luminiari]

Therein lies the problem. If the race is not marked as Playable, the GREETING topic doesn't show up.

 

I suppose the real thing I need to figure out is how to add the GREETING topic to a non-playable race.

[Astymma]

Well as far as I know, a top level topic like GREETING has no conditions... the responses to the topic have the conditions. Since the responses in the GREETING topic are ALL quest related and since ALL oblivion/si quests check to see if the NPC is an NPC and not a creature, they include GetIsPlayableRace and other conditions to identify an NPC as an NPC (sometimes as a specific NPC by ID). Note that the default behavior of a topic condition is to run on the speaker (NPC) and not the speaker's target (PC). You can change this by using "Run on Target". So all those quest specific GREETING responses that check for GetIsPlayableRace are being run against the NPC, probably to make sure they're an NPC and not a creature (without race mods, it's a fast and easy identifier of an NPC).

 

You have a few options:

 

Add a new response to GREETING and have the conditions be unique to your NPC or a quest related to your NPC.

 

Make a new quest, set one stage to the quest and put the player at that stage, make the quest repeatable, have the quest reference GREETING and include one response under GREETING with the only condition being checking if they're on that stage of that quest.

 

Make a new quest, set one stage to the quest and put the player at that stage, make the quest repeatable, have the quest reference GREETING and include one response under GREETING with the only condition being checking if the NPC is the right NPC using object ID (i.e. GetIsID "MyNPCObjectID").

 

Make a new top level topic and have the responses all check if the ID of the NPC is one of your NPC's and add the topic to the player via script.

 

Some combination of the above.

 

The only thing to remember is that response conditions default to being ran on the NPC unless Run on Target is selected in which case they run against the PC.

 

P.S. I'm sorry if this is just reinforcing something you already knew. I just wanted to make everything clear so we're all on the same base :)

Edited January 24, 2011 by Astymma

[Luminiari]

Sounds a little confusing, but I'm sure once I actually have the CS in front of me I'll figure it out. I'll let you know how I go with it when I'm on my rig later today!

[Astymma]

Sounds a little confusing, but I'm sure once I actually have the CS in front of me I'll figure it out. I'll let you know how I go with it when I'm on my rig later today!

 

Aha, so I FAIL at "making everything clear" I see, lol :)

[Luminiari]

It's not that; like I said, if I had the CS in front of me it WOULD make sense. Got work on the brain atm. XP

[Astymma]

It's not that; like I said, if I had the CS in front of me it WOULD make sense. Got work on the brain atm. XP

 

Ahh, if you're going to be adding a new GREETING response using the CS, just be aware of the AddTopic bug in the CS and act accordingly.

[Luminiari]

Just making sure, do your methods take into consideration the fact that one cannot add the GREETING topic to a race that's not marked Playable?

[Astymma]

Yes, I just tested the following in the CS:

 

1. Create a new quest and call it something like GenericNonPlayableRaceNPCShopkeeper

2. Set the quest as repeatable and start enabled

3. Set the quest conditions as GetIsID = "YourNPCObjectID" and OR together the condition for all your NPCs you want to use this GREETING topic (so GetIsID = "YourNPC1" OR GetIsID = "YourNPC2" for example)

4. Create a new response under the GREETING topic and right click on it and choose Move to Quest and then select "GenericNonPlayableRaceNPCShopkeeper" from the quest list

5. Open up your NPC and click the dialogue button

6. Under topics you should now see GREETING and on the right you should see your response

 

Let me know if that works for you...

 

P.S. Note that you aren't adding a topic to ANY npc. What you are adding is a topic to a quest and the conditions of the quest must be inclusive to the NPC. Since ALl oblivion/si quests include conditions that preclude a non-playable race npc, you will NOT see GREETING as an available topic for that NPC. The solution is to create a new quest that DOES include that NPC and add a response under GREETING that's tied to that quest. GREETING will then appear for that NPC as a dialogue topic that is now available.

 

P.P.S. Note that you'll have to play around with the quest settings and quest stages if you want to make sure that nothing appears in the quest journal and other such details.

Edited January 24, 2011 by Astymma